Need for Speed Reviews
As it stands, you can do better than this year's Need for Speed. Sure, it possesses all the traditional EA spit and polish we're used to what with a punchy soundtrack and fantastic production values, but they do little to elevate one of the lesser entries in the franchise.
This year's Need for Speed reboot feels like a fresh start for the series — and one that will likely be improved upon when its inevitable 2016 sequel rolls around.
There are so many glaring flaws right up front; the framerate bottoms out, the story characters forced upon the players are atrocious and the always online requirement simply eats up bandwidth while adding nothing to the experience. When it hits that perfect line, however, this manages to be a satisfying and beautiful experience.
Need For Speed borrows from the series' past to create an excellent street racer with a handful of obnoxious but ultimately forgivable problems.
Need for Speed is a game that gets many things right, and brings it back to the glory days of Need for Speed Underground 1 and 2. I have not had this much fun in a racing game in some time, and even though it misses a few marks, it is definitely worth the time of racing fans.
The Need for Speed reboot improves upon several of the more recent installments in the game, which were plagued with problems more serious than these. But I was disappointed when my pure joy in the look and driving feel of NFS drained away over time, sucked out by boring treks across the city and one too many encounters with unfair A.I.
The new Need for Speed does a good bit of justice towards the original Underground games, it falls a bit short on the new aspects it tried to incorporate. The open city aspects and the way you start races might feel familiar to Burnout Paradise players. It honestly seems to share the same setup, which isn't a bad thing. The cars are certainly the focus, as they should be, but the tacked on story and constant interruptions hinder the experience. Add to this the A.I. uses rubber band aspects. The racing is solid enough, and it is pretty cool to see other people on your server completing challenges across the bay, live.
You'd be hard pressed to find an automaker willing to take an extra year to reset their car line much like Ghost Games did here with their second run on Need for Speed. What we get is a more focused and competent racer but one seemingly unwilling to risk standing out from the crowd.
Need for Speed looks the part, sounds the part, and is surprisingly reverent to real-world car culture. I like the direction Ghost has taken here, and I think it's the right one, but beneath its flashy exterior it's not quite firing on all cylinders.
2015's Need for Speed is in many ways more grounded than other recent entries. You don't throw spike strips at each other and you don't jump off buildings. It's more about the inherent excitement of dodging traffic and drifting down the side of a mountain. The customization features are a welcome return, and the five-layered career lets you play with different approaches to driving. Some aspects of Need for Speed could use more variety, but it's a solid foundation to move the series forward..
EA's famous racer is promisingly rebooted in its 21st installment, but still needs some work under the hood
The customization and racing itself is fantastic, but Need For Speed reboot has certainly not gotten out to a fast start behind frame rate issues and the insistence to be always online.
Ghost Games' Need for Speed reboot came with lofty promises, but fails to achieve greatness in any category, be it racing, building or customization. The core gameplay experience is half-decent, but it's marred by frustrating AI, technical imperfections, handling hiccups and constantly wet roads.
If you're a long-time fan of the series, you'll find something to enjoy here, but if this is your first time behind the wheel, you're going to want sit this one out and check out some of previously-released Need for Speed titles.
The quality feel of the driving and nice-looking environment are buried under heaps of technical issues and bland objectives.
When you factor in Need for Speed's forgettable story, you're left with a slightly above average racing game that's not as enjoyable as past series entries. From a pure gameplay perspective, it works, but it never manages to elevate itself. If you're in the mood for a new cinematic racer though, you could do a whole lot worse.
Blazing through the night provides some fun racing moments, but NFS doesn't support or assemble its constituent parts to any cumulative positive
Need for Speed takes driving into a gorgeous world with a modern edge, but its pesky attitude and strict online-only requirement make you yearn for the good old days.
I enjoyed my time with Need for Speed. Ghost Games is onto something seriously promising with this franchise reboot. However, being unable to pause the game as well as no option to play offline may prove two obstacles that are not surmountable for some players.